APD Week#10 - Play and Nature

Response: 

• Theme

In response to the theme of Play and Nature, I made a product poster of a digital table plant pet that swings on a wooden frame with a digital interface showing the pet’s name, age, thirst, hunger and sun percentage. there is also a digital face on the flowerpot indicating the pet’s mood according to its needs and people’s touches.

• Method

Firstly, I drew a rough sketch of the concept. By following that, I found an image of a real plant, then I added things based on it using Photoshop. For example, I created rectangles of the frames and then placed wooden textures over them, and drew shadows over them to make them look real. The flowerpot is installed with a moisture transducer, a nutrition transducer, a light sensor and a touch sensor. They will detect substances that people water, fertilizer and the sunlight project on it to calculate the health bar percentage. The plant will show a happy face when people caress it as a pet-like response through the touch sensor. It will also show a hungry face and a sun-needed face.

• Context

Richard Coyne(2014) believes that digital technologies place a barrier between people and nature. Although somehow it is the truth that nowadays people focus on their smartphones rather than relaxing with nature. However, in my opinion, digital technology can also provide a better opportunity of interacting with nature. PlanPet offers office people who sit in front of the computer for a long time to interact with green leaves. Compared to normal plants, the personification of the plant as a pet strengthens the bond between raiser and plant. Since people will feel more willing to interact with them if they can give feedback like pets.

I got my inspiration from digital pets that I raised in my childhood. They also have a series of data like hunger, entertainment, etc,. The owner of a pet should keep an eye on those health values and take care of them. Because I was worried about if they were hungry or any value decreased, I would check the pet many times. Thus, I feel this kind of raising pet mode is suitable for table plants too, as it can increase people’s interaction times with greens.

• Reflection

Because I’m currently under quarantine, I unfortunately can’t go out in nature. So I designed this natural product that can accompany me in front of my desk.This was my first time designing a product, it was interesting to see a number of unrelated elements coming together to composite a new thing. To improve this response or make this more fascinating, I think an advertisement video may have a better propaganda effect and attract clients. But overall, I believe this idea of a digital table plant will be popular and stand out among other normal table plants.

Coyne, R., 2014. NATURE VS. SMARTPHONES. [online] IX INTERACTIONS. Available at: https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/september-october-2014/nature-vs.-smartphones [Accessed 18 May 2022].

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